“It can’t be much further,” I yelled over my shoulder. “Further, further, further,” echoed off the dripping walls and ceiling.
“Right,” my wife said. “I’m heading back. Back, back, back.”
We were in the Thurston Lava Tube in Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii, a 500-year old underground lava cave that you can walk through.
“As you visit the tube consider that several hundred years ago a river of red lava rushed through,” it said on the official website. We were trying our best not to think about that. We were also trying not to think about a little something the docent at the oldest church in Kona told us during her talk: “We have earthquakes every day because of the volcanoes. The last one completely destroyed buildings across the street and the accompanying tsunami flooded everything.”
Three hurricanes had passed the island since we had arrived. We received a number of automatic flash flood warnings on our iPhones. Plus it was raining now, lightly, but steadily.
Did I mention we were the only ones in the dimly-lit lava tube? No one in the world knew we were here except us. If we did have a combination earthquake/eruption/flash flood it might be decades before we were excavated.
Of course they might notice the lone car in the parking lot, but it belonged to the Hawaiian family we were house swapping with, and they weren’t home, they were in Santa Barbara. It would make quite a story, which I could probably sell for a million dollars – if I weren’t lavafied.
“I think I see a white light,” I yelled to my now-retreating wife.
“Could be your life flashing before your eyes.” She was almost back to the beginning of the tube, where the path led into the rain forest.
We were going to visit the tube the previous afternoon when most normal people went. We had taken the Kilauea Iki Trailhead off Chain of Craters Road and walked along the rim of the crater. Most places along the edge have a railing, but for those who want to test their mettle, there are spots you can stand and look straight down hundreds of feet and see lens caps, baseball hats and what looked like bones, but may have been sticks. Along the trail we saw a pair of wild Kalij pheasants, which looked delicious. "We should probably eat soon."
Pat figured out that we were going to end up at the next parking lot and offered to go get the car while I kept going. For a while, I was the only one on the trail. That’s when I began hearing strange sounds just off the trail in the woods. Feral pigs, I thought. What was it the guidebook said to do? Oh yeah, bark like a large dog.
A family came around the corner. I pretended I was clearing my throat. "Must be the volcanic gases." They stayed well over on their side. Later I found out that the park had eradicated all the feral pigs – or so they say.
When we got to the parking lot it was full of buses emptying dozens of foreign tourists, who must be required by tradition to take photos of each other every 11 feet or sooner, onto the lava tube trail.
So we had driven back to the Volcano House hotel, past the large electronic sign that said
“Warning Air Quality Unhealthy” and watched Kilauea smoke and smolder from the bar while we enjoyed large tiki mugs full of alcoholic beverages and pork sliders and pork and pineapple pizza. I think I know what they did with all those feral pigs.
This morning, we had gotten up early to beat the rush. And here we were, facing impending death. “Wait! It’s daylight! I see the stairs that lead us out. Out, out, out.”
I walked back and dragged, er, escorted my wife through the lava tube, along the damp rock floor with a ceiling just high enough in the center to keep you from scraping your head – too often – to the other end.
“That was cool, huh?”
“Actually… yes, quite cool.”
“What do you want do now?”
“Let’s go to the lava fields to see where we might have ended up.”